iSlate the iPad

You would have to have been living under a rock (if Steve has his way, an iRock) for the past month to have escaped the media circus that has been following the faintest scrap of news regarding Apples new gadget. Although it was announced over a week ago, I have purposefully delayed writing about it on my blog. As a self-confessed Apple fan, I have been hoping that I would eventually be swayed by what is essentially an expensive paperweight.

Firstly, I am disappointed by the screen. Despite countless reviews claiming it to be 'stunning', it is essentially pretty standard. A 1024x768 display is nothing new. I was at least expecting it to be OLED or use electronic ink. There's no way that people are going to choose staring at a small, expensive, brightly lit screen over buying an inexpensive paperback. The publishing industry need a truly innovative display technology in order to convince people that the reading material that has been used since the EGYPTIANS should be surpassed. This. Is. Not. It.

I'm also disappointed at the funcitonality. Not being able to multi-task is a real flaw. OK, so maybe with a software update you'll be able to at a later date; that would explain the OTT processor. But even then, I really can't see why anyone would have any use for it. You can't really take it out and about because the curved back makes typing impossible, it only connects to wifi, a huge chunk of the web will be inaccessible because of their disagreements with Adobe and WHERE WOULD YOU PUT IT?! Aside from the fact that you could use your cheaper, 3G compatible iPhone instead, which handily also allows you to make telephone calls.

So maybe Apple want you to use it at home. But surely if you have enough cash floating around to buy an iPad (the name meant that within an hour of it's announcement, iTampon was trending on Twitter), you'd have a pretty banging computer. So I've concluded that the only place you'd end up using your iPad would be in the toilet. Where it belongs.

Alas, despite consistently looking for a reason to love the latest iGadget, I can find none. Instead, I become incensed by the audacity and arrogance of Apple to release an ultimately useless gadget which they believe will be bought in its millions because of the Apple brand...which is undoubtedly what will happen.

NB. If he used all these adjectives so many times, they can't be true.